


The Borders Invisible

by Snickfic



Series: Author's Favorites [23]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Loyalty Kink, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-24 04:16:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17697491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: Loki disappears in a fit of pique and turns up a month later in a Contraxian brothel. Heimdall goes to retrieve him.





	The Borders Invisible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scioscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this, dear recip. <3 I really enjoyed writing it for you. :)

The nearest port on this side of Contraxia was well out from the city, and evening had fallen by the time Heimdall reached his destination. Snow crunched under his feet as he passed the deep blue shadows of alleys and the neon glow of shop signs, pink and green and gold. No one looked at him long. Nothing about him was notable on this planetoid of smugglers and pirates.

He’d have felt better with Hofund in his hand, or at least at his back.

He found the place he was looking for, just another bright-lit fiberglass façade with prefab underneath. There were no yellow-skinned love-bots lounging in this lobby, as he’d seen through the windows of other establishments. There was one sitting behind a counter, but she wore as much clothing as he, and she didn’t look inclined to offer him a good time. 

“I’m looking to hire some company,” he told her.

She looked at him flatly. “What kind?”

“Biological. Male. Of a similar shape to myself.” He paused, shrugged. “Of a different color, perhaps.” That ruled out barely half of the races that a madame on Contraxia might have in her employ. He’d have to trust to his luck for the rest, and if that failed, try again.

She gave him another long look, and then she brought up a screen with text on it. The script was Kulpian, perhaps. Not one Heimdall had ever had reason to learn, nor had probably anyone else on this planetoid. She pursed her lips and named a price. 

It was far too many units for what Heimdall had asked for. It was far too few for what he’d come to find. Heimdall lifted his credit chit to her scanner and transferred the units without comment. She gave him a room number and a key: a hologram disk that shimmered in the light. He did not allow himself to look ahead as he climbed the stairs, to find if he’d been lucky, as he hoped. At the second landing he stepped out into the corridor. At the end of it was his number. He dropped the key disk into the lock, which clicked, and he pushed the door open.

Loki was stretched out on the bed, nude but for a green thong, dark hair fanned across the pillow. His eyes were shut. Heimdall closed the door and stood just inside it, noting Loki’s unmarked skin, his unshadowed eyes—but that told him nothing, for Loki had learned to glamour away such things long ago. Loki’s breath was steady, but not in sleep. He was waiting.

Heimdall waited, too. He had even more practice at it than Loki, who more and more in recent years resembled a serpent waiting to strike. And finally it was Loki who moved, who fluttered his eyes open as if just waking—and then gave up the pretense when he saw Heimdall. Loki sat up, eyes flashing. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Hello, my prince.”

Loki scowled at Heimdall for a moment before his expression smoothed out, as neat as a glamour. He leaned back on his palms. “Did Father send you?” he asked casually, as if it did not matter, as if he were only curious.

“Your brother, actually.” 

Loki’s mouth twisted. He had learned to tuck much of himself away as tidily as he stored items in his pocket dimensions, but not _all_ of himself. Not yet. “Afraid he’ll be blamed for losing me, I expect.”

“It’s very hard to keep hold of an item that wishes to be lost.”

Loki's nostrils flared. 

“He thought perhaps you’d been kidnapped.” Thor had had a wild look about the eyes when he reappeared in the observatory, the Warriors Three in tow. Loki had been with them on Vanaheim, and then he was not any longer, and of course Thor knew how Loki liked to sneak off for his little games, but they’d looked about and listened for a month and found no sign of him, and no doubt Loki would appear on Asgard again at any moment, quite whole and very pleased with himself, but what if he should not, Heimdall, for—and this was where Thor’s voice had dropped even further, so even Heimdall had had to strain to hear—for Loki and Father had had words, and Thor feared Loki had taken himself off into some kind of trouble. 

“But he wasn’t sure, or else the full might of Asgard would have come through that door,” Loki said. Heimdall dipped his chin in agreement. This irritated Loki, which meant little, for Loki wished to be irritated these days—this last hundred years. “I’m not going back.”

Heimdall looked about the room—clean enough, but behind the fresh paint and Contraxia’s ever-present neon glow at the window, it was a room weary with time, stained with the passing of years in the way these prefab units were prone to. It was nothing like the Eternal Realm. That was the point, perhaps.

“I’m not going back,” Loki repeated, which was unlike him. “Now, unless you’ve some use for my services, you should leave.”

Heimdall considered him again, long enough for Loki to squirm a little under his gaze. Gratifying, that Heimdall still held at least that much sway. “Very well,” he said, and walked properly into the room at last. “I did purchase your company, after all.” He unclasped his cloak and hung it on a knob by the door. Next to it he hung his weapons belt, with the knife at one hand and the laser pistol in the other. He untied his boots and set them beneath the cloak, and then he turned. 

He half-expected the room to be empty, but there was Loki still, unmoving, eyes ablaze, jaw set. Loki watched him as he continued to undress, layer by layer, pieces of his borrowed anonymity laid aside until Heimdall was himself alone. His skin prickled in the room’s air, chilled as habitations on Contraxia were always chilled. He was still quite soft.

“Was this why you did not tell Father?” Loki said. He offered Heimdall a smirk.

Heimdall hummed in reply. He sat on the corner of the bed. The sheets were satin and slick against his thighs. “What shall I do with your company, I wonder?”

“Whatever you like.” Loki reclined on the bed, putting all his milk-white skin on display.

Heimdall had thought through many possible fates, aboard the ship from Vanaheim. In one, Loki had vanished just hours before Heimdall arrived. In another, Loki had laughed at Heimdall’s arrival and asked what had taken him so long. But in truth Heimdall had always expected his journey would end here, on this bed, while Loki’s gaze dared him to follow through. 

“I would see you as you are,” Heimdall said at last. “Without the glamour.”

Clearly Loki had not expected that. He inhaled, a sharp breath that caught halfway. The moment held, quivering with tension: how much would Loki allow? How long before this game he’d set the pieces for began to bore him? 

With a languid flick of Loki’s wrist, the perfection of his skin peeled back like a film. Now it was Heimdall who sucked in a breath. Beneath the glamor, Loki was dark with great sprawling bruises, with slender marks like fingers at his hips. A scratch on his shoulder had barely closed, and there was another purpling bruise on his chin and across one cheekbone. From shadowed hollows his eyes looked out now, bright as those of one of the All-Father’s own ravens.

“Now I understand why you cost so much,” Heimdall said. 

“Whatever you like,” Loki repeated. The confidence had leaked out of his voice, leaving only bravado.

“I did think it odd that your keeper put no restrictions on your use. Proprietors here are usually so careful with their stock.” If anything, Loki went even more still at this—at which part, Heimdall could only guess. Heimdall allowed himself a smile. “Did you think only you were worldly enough to stray so far? You, barely out of your first millennium?”

“What do you want from me?” Loki gritted out.

“Silence,” Heimdall said. Loki’s mouth snapped shut, too fast to have been a considered decision. His cheeks reddened without any glamour to hide them—red with anger and something else: interest. Heimdall stroked Loki’s thigh, cool and pale and nearly hairless. Heimdall didn’t care for the bruises, but still: Loki made an appealing picture. Heimdall would enjoy himself if he weren’t careful, and that he could not afford. “I would like you to suck my cock, I think.” He gestured to the floor at his feet.

Loki met his eyes for one long moment, and then he slid off the bed and knelt between Heimdall’s knees, where Heimdall had begun to stiffen. Heimdall could give himself a hundred excuses for that, but in truth none of them mattered, for his cock was playing the part Heimdall required of it.

Loki knelt there, his breath like another chilly draft. He lifted his eyes, a question in them. Was this where some of the bruises had come from, this insolence worthy of a prince? It felt utterly natural for Heimdall to twist his fingers in Loki’s hair, grip it tight, and bend his head over Heimdall’s cock. “Go on,” Heimdall said.

Loki’s mouth, when it finally closed around Heimdall, was like any mouth. A bit cool, perhaps. Nor had Loki any particular skill; he tongued over Heimdall’s head as anyone might, stroked Heimdall’s length with a touch that was practiced but not extraordinary. Heimdall could have closed his eyes and imagine he was being sucked by anyone, were it not for the strands of black hair tangled in his fingers. 

Heimdall was suddenly furious: at Thor for asking this of him and himself for agreeing, and at Loki most of all. “Is that all you can do?” Heimdall said, yanking Loki’s head back so that he could see the long white line of his throat and the arousal in his eyes, nearly all pupil. Heimdall tugged harder. Some hairs pulled free in his grip. “A prince of the nine realms? I expected better.”

Loki’s eyes sparked with fury as he held Heimdall’s gaze and went for Heimdall’s cock again. This time he swallowed him down farther, until many would have choked. A flush had risen on his cheeks. He was sloppier now, no more skilled but less careful, drooling. Heimdall twitched in Loki’s mouth, and Loki gave a little moan, giving up his last pretense that he did not care for this. Heimdall was not immune to the sight: his prince, flushed and eager and hungry.

When Heimdall knew he could last no longer, he tightened his fingers in Loki’s hair again. “On the bed.” Loki stared dazedly up at him. Heimdall thumbed across Loki’s cheek. “Up, my prince.” He regretted the words immediately, but Loki took no notice of them. He got to his feet shakily and crawled onto the bed. Even now he could manage an insolent quirk of his eyebrow, asking what Heimdall would ask of him next. “On your belly,” Heimdall said.

And there Loki was, spread out before him, darkened with bruises old and new and pale in between. The arse Heimdall had caught many dispassionate glimpses of as he watched over Asgard now waited for him alone. 

First Heimdall worked the green satin thong off Loki’s hips and down his legs. He tossed it in a corner. Then Heimdall rose, pressed a likely-looking button on the wall, and retrieved a slim little tube from the drawer that slid open. Loki watched all this, twisting his head to keep watching as Heimdall settled back on the bed and twisted off the cap. “Would you have me warm this on my fingers? Or perhaps you’d prefer it cold.” Loki only stared, mouth shut. “Warm,” Heimdall decided. The Norns knew everything else on this planetoid was endlessly cold, including Loki. He stroked Loki with his free hand, up and down the back of his thigh, across old, yellowing bruises.

When the lube had warmed a little on his fingers, Heimdall straddled Loki and began to work him open. Loki buried his face in a pillow. Some of his moans escaped anyway, long and delicious, curling in the pit of Heimdall’s stomach.

Finally Heimdall capped the tube and put it aside. He wiped his slicked fingers on a corner of the bedspread. “I believe you’re ready. Unless you would prefer not,” he added. He was about to fuck his prince on a brothel bed on a tiny, frozen planetoid beyond the nine realms’ farthest borders; his nerve wouldn’t break, but perhaps it bent just a little. 

Loki shoved up onto his elbows to glare at Heimdall, as clear and haughty as any command: _don’t you dare stop._

Heimdall smiled a little to see it—a mistake, no doubt, but he would worry about it another time. Now he stood up on his knees and straddled Loki’s thighs. He took a moment once more to admire the view, to slide his palm along Loki’s ribs. Under his hand, Loki lay still and quiet. “I’ve seen you many times before, you know.” The words were softer than he intended. Night had fallen outside, and the fresh snow muted the mutters and shouts of the city. They were alone, he and Loki, far beyond Odin’s reach, beyond anyone’s. 

Loki twisted to look back, asking with another glare what was taking Heimdall so long: imperious to the end. “I’ll give you what you want,” Heimdall said. His anger was long gone now; the words were only fond. This time Loki shivered when Heimdall stroked his haunch; he bowed his head over the pillow as Heimdall lined up behind him. He played his cock up and down across Loki’s hole just to see Loki squirm and hear the grunt of irritation in his throat, hurriedly swallowed down. Then Heimdall pushed slowly in.

 _This is your prince_ , came the thought, as Loki enveloped Heimdall so sweetly. The thought came with satisfaction instead of shame. Heimdall put that aside, too. “You may make noise, if you wish,” he said, and pulled back to thrust again. This time Loki groaned so deep Heimdall felt it, too. “Yes,” Heimdall said, nonsensically. He was beyond strategy now, lost in the act and the cool delicious drag on his dick and the slap of his thighs against Loki’s. And then even those details were beyond him as need built in his gut and his balls, until it crested, sudden and sharp and inevitable.

For a time he lay there on top of Loki, senseless. It was when Loki squirmed that Heimdall began to return to himself—and with his sense came his misgivings, but there was still no time for them.

“Well—” Loki began.

“Hush,” Heimdall said. He pulled out and shoved off of Loki, onto his knees. “Over.” 

“What?”

“Over,” Heimdall repeated. He gripped Loki’s hip and tugged. 

After a moment, with a confused grumble, Loki rolled over. He caught sight of Heimdall’s cock, lax now, and offered a smirk. The expression looked out of place

This had been the final piece of Heimdall’s plan all along, even as he’d questioned the wisdom of it—of everything. He questioned it still, but nonetheless he spread Loki’s knees and lay down between them. He could feel Loki’s skepticism in every line of tension in his body. “Peace, my prince,” he said, and then he took Loki’s softened cock in his mouth.

“What are you—”

Heimdall pinched the tender skin of Loki’s thigh. Loki cut himself short.

Loki had started to leak just from sucking Heimdall’s cock and perhaps from the fucking. Now he was aquiver with tension and shaking, uncertain breaths, and it was not difficult to coax him hard again. _This is your prince_ , came the thought again, and Heimdall tongued at Loki’s slit, just to hear him moan.

“Wait,” Loki said at last, a bitten-off word. 

Heimdall lifted his gaze to Loki’s eyes, so wide and dark.

“I’m going to—” But Loki did not finish; he stared at Heimdall and did not speak.

Heimdall reached up to stroke across Loki’s ribs. A muscle in Loki’s belly quivered at the touch—tense, or only ticklish? But that was not for Heimdall to discover. He shut his eyes, closed his hand around the root of Loki’s cock, and brought him home. 

He tasted a little bit bitter. He tasted like a man. Heimdall swallowed Loki to the last drop, and then at last he pulled off.

He was cold, now. Goosebumps had risen on his arms. He fetched his cloak from the peg he’d hung it on and returned to the bed. Loki watched his approach, his eyes wide. Heimdall lay next to him, near enough for some small exchange of warmth, and spread the cloak over them both.

Loki’s breath shook. “What do you want?” he asked, and it was nothing like before. His voice was small, like a child’s, though Loki had reached his majority a century ago and more.

Heimdall spread his hand across Loki’s chest—still thin, and nearly hairless. Perhaps he would always be that; perhaps hair was beyond the reach of Odin’s spellworking. What odd boundaries there were in magic, invisible borders never found until one had already crossed them; in magic and elsewhere, too.

Heimdall said, “Come home, my prince.”

Loki shuddered with ill-concealed feeling.

“It’s not only your brother who worries for you.”

Loki heaved a shaky breath. “Did you tell Mother where you’d gone?”

“No.”

“Did Thor tell you what I—what Father said?”

Heimdall didn’t point out that he could easily have heard it himself, that even though he hadn’t, he’d heard arguments enough between them to guess. Always they were the same, vicious and full of venom: Loki was sly, Loki did not show the correct respect, Odin cared too little for Loki’s accomplishments, Odin cared too much for Thor’s. “No,” Heimdall said.

Loki said nothing. He stared at the ceiling, unblinking.

It was foolish, but so had this whole journey been. It was foolish, but Heimdall did it anyway: he pushed himself up and put his lips to Loki’s neck, just behind his jaw. He didn’t kiss Loki. He only put his mouth to Loki and breathed. And with each breath he pressed the words into Loki’s skin: _Come home, my prince_.

Loki’s jaw worked as he swallowed. “Very well,” he said at last, and shifted away. He disappeared through a door that opened in the wall, and Heimdall heard water turn on—cold water, if his long-ago memories of this place were anything to go by. Heimdall spent the time putting himself back together, piece by piece.

Loki walked out again fully dressed in the black and green leathers he’d come to favor: as far from Thor’s colors as possible, and Odin’s too. The bruises on his jaw and under his eyes had vanished. He was regal once more, distant and untouchable, and something in Heimdall ached to see it. Loki’s gaze swept the room before falling on Heimdall, standing at easy attention. A glimmer of feeling flashed in Loki’s eyes, and then even that was gone, hidden as deeply as if he’d buried it in a vault. “Very well,” he said one last time, and walked out the door.

And there was nothing for Heimdall to do but follow.

[end]


End file.
